If it’s the daily stuff, day in and day out – then its routine.
And if it’s crazy – then it’s busy and tiring. I am torn between the two. At such times several questions run in my head - Whats happening"? why me? When are things going to change? I have waited too long. I quit! Is this needed for my learning? Is it that, that inspite of the ordeals my higher self/soul wants me to find my strength, it wants me to find my inner balance?? And I have, to a certain extent. But at such times, I have had no choice but to go into my "reserve" space (so to speak) and find my balance. It does make me feel ok (I will not deny, that its not enough but maybe it’s a start). This has helped me tide over for the time being and "march forward" inspite of the all the things happening around me. And how did I get here, you ask? Meditation and Mindfulness ! Practicing meditation daily and awareness whenever I can rememeber. It is said that , and rightly so, in order to live a fulfilled life - we need to understand that there are 2 important sides or "wings" which brings us into a state of balance. With only 1 wing we will be "off balance" (imagine a bird with only one wing trying to soar - it’s a futile effort). Hence one of the most important things to find inner strength is to learn meditation and practice it. I know its not easy, and its boring and there are multiple more exciting things to do in a day than meditation - oh! I have been through those thoughts. But believe me when I say this that for most people initially it is so. And you would need support of friends/co-meditators for meditating together, hearing and reading about the amazing meditation experiences that people have had (I read so many and still do), all of this is motivating. I needed to do this for more than a year or two before I was able to meditate on my own without the support. And I made lot of friends who gave me tips which was fun too. I still remember having the full moon group meditation at a friends place, the teas shared together in the middle of the night because its not easy to sit for long hours, meeting and sharing experiences and spiritual knowledge. Breath meditation is so easy to practice without any rituals of sitting cross-legged and there is no need to wake up early to practice it - anywhere and anytime is what I like. The breath is not physical, it is subtle so it is easy to observe breath. This eventually helps in releasing repeated thoughts. The other "wing" needed to have is mindfulness. Awareness, alertness!. In a way awareness is also the by-product of meditating everyday. Which means that automatically at times during the waking hours, we feel, experience the present moment as is, or we would observe our running thoughts like a 3rd person etc. But at lot of times, it is necessary to practice it to ingrain the habit in us. Meditation technique can be practiced. But how to practice mindfulness? Well, an easy way to do this is - to spare 5-10 minutes during the day , maybe at your desk or if you are travelling/sitting - and just bring in awareness into your body. Part by part. Just feel each body part starting from the top of your head to down or starting from the toe to up. Next feel the air on the skin - cool or hot, hear the sounds around you and don't judge. Just hear them casually. I think this is a good start to bring in awareness to the body. The other practice and an important one is to spare 5-10 minutes at your desk and just observe the thoughts that come in your mind without judgement. Just let them come and go. Don’t act on them. Just let them flow. Don’t get carried away by them by reacting on them and mulling over them emotionally. Don’t attach any emotional drama to those thoughts. Over time we can realize the futility of thinking or rather overthinking. And ignore most thoughts, atleast that is the end point. But what is the use of all of this? Well for starters, due to meditation and awareness, you can become aware of your own un-necessary and useless repeated thinking patters. The other thing is you become aware of your own body - if any niggles or pains start, due to awkward postures, you can come to know sooner and due to this, a physical illness can be avoided. The other benefit is there will be no un-necessary drama of emotions due to un-necessary thoughts since 99% of our thoughts are useless and generated without any assistance from us. Hence the emotional drama (e.g. self pity, victim-why me-feeling, anger, frustration, jealousy etc.) in our life will reduce over time. Dont forget that when certain emotions well up we can observe them rising and come to understand the thought and emotion relationship and this can be nipped at the bud or we can do something about it. The other day me and a meditator friend practiced this over Skype and reiterated it to each other. We all need reminders everytime. I have been wanting to slow down lately but nothing in ‘this’ world supports slowing down. Except maybe the ‘Universe’ :)
The other day I went for a lunch party to a restaurant. This restaurant is known for its unlimited food (bite sized portions of food are served every now and then- Indian thali meal). Oh my god! The amount of bombarding of food! I hadn’t even finished my earlier portion when the server served in the next portion. They didn’t even let us eat or enjoy the meal or even talk. The servers just kept coming in and asking us for more food. I don’t want to complain but this is what happened –there was no real “enjoying the food”. Don’t get me wrong, even I have been guilty of watching TV or talking while eating instead of enjoying the meal in mindfulness and eventually rushing through the simple things of life. I’m in a dilemma! At workplace, its like I should have finished the work yesterday. There is no such thing as slowing down, just rush, rush, rush! But when the brief moment arrives, like this, when sitting in contemplation or when I am in meditation and there is that teeny weeny space created in the mind, some "emptiness" is generated (empty here is not a bad empty but in a good way), some useful thoughts come in automatically. There is rejuvenation of self. I feel revived, lot more energetic. The breathing becomes slower. And I wonder if I can sustain this for long, is it possible to survive in this fast paced materialistic world? Is there space for space?? What does a person do in such a situation? How can a person find the space? Well it’s difficult, I can tell you that. But a good start is I guess to practice mindfulness - to be present and aware of the current activity we are doing or we could go within ourselves and observe our own body -- this would slow down the mind and bring some space. Anyway I won’t talk much about mindfulness since there is lots out there on how to practice mindfulness. There is also the master teacher – Thich Nhat Hanh – guru of mindfulness. If you wish to know how to bring space and peace, practice meditation and mindfulness. So anyway, an iota of space observed during the rush hour madness of the day gives a feeling like no other. Leaves you with wanting more, greedy for more. Ok not greed. Because that again is against the idea of slowing down, reeks of grabbing. Supposedly, everything will come to you whenever you ‘need’ it and not ‘want’ it. And we need only our "needs" to be satisfied, really speaking and that is enough to make us happy and peaceful. But how does one go about one’s life with expanding that iota of feeling good when slowing down? How can we have more such moments? I mean let’s face it, there are the outputs (at job or otherwise) that should have been provided yesterday and actually we are infact late today. Do we just ignore the deadline or the people by being an ostrich and put our head in the sand? To hell with the job?! Run away? Quit?! Ok. So no "conversations" happened with God yet (Neale Donald Walsh style) and no questions got answered yet. Right now all I can think of is ‘take it slow’ and forget about others or maybe find another job. |
AuthorThis is a blog about my thoughts, my journey in life, insights I have had, help that I have received spiritually or otherwise, pretty much anything... Archives
November 2021
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